Hi. I am Rich Harris, and welcome to my Asian Bites series for Videojug. In this episode,
we are going to be kicking off with a classic Malaysian dish. It is chicken satay. But none
of those lurid bright sauces and horrible food colorings. This is the real deal.
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First thing to do is to make the marinade. Got some shallots, straight in.
Some garlic, ground cumin, and ground coriander.
So I've got some red chilies here, I'm just going to take the stalks off.
Keep the seeds in, because you want a nice bit of heat going through there. Roughly chop
them, and chuck them in as well.
Next up is this, an incredible ingredient, it's galangal.
People think it is similar to ginger, the flavor is completely different. It is perfumed,
it is light, and it is incredibly tropical and fragrant.
Trim off the outer skin, be quite careful when you do this because it is quite a tough
root.
Trim off any stem, and then just roughly chop it,
and add it to the food processor.
So for a full list of ingredients for this recipe, check out the description box.
So next up is some lemongrass. Just pull off the tough outer leaves, trim the ends off.
Just get rid of any of these woody bits here.
And then just roughly chop.
You do not have to be too neat with the chopping, because it is all going to get blitzed up
to a paste anyway. And the next flavor to go in is turmeric. Smells really fragrant,
quite strong, pungent flavor.
Now, a lot of people say that you need to peel this, but I think if you just give it
a good scrub, the skin is actually so thin on this, it does not matter, and particularly
when you're using it for a marinade. Also, it stains everything it gets into contact
with, so the less faffing around, the better. So straight in.
The next up is kecap manis. It is a slightly thicker soy sauce, it is also sweetened as
well. And because it has that good level of sugar in there, when you go to grill the chicken,
that is going to caramelize and go deep and sticky and charred, and just taste phenomenal.
So, good glug of that in there.
And then, we are going to get the motor going and just keep gradually adding oil until it
comes together to form a nice paste.
So just gradually add oil, and bring this together.
That does seem like quite a lot of oil to add to the marinade, but that is going to
coat the chicken really beautifully, and also it means you do not need to oil the chicken
at all when you cook it.
That is what we are looking for, nice loose marinade, everything is blitzed up, everything
is blended together. And that needs to go straight over the chicken.
I am using chicken thigh, just chopped up into bite sized pieces. It's got far more
flavor than chicken breast, it is far more traditional, and it is going to work so much
better on the barbeque, or on the grill, because it can withstand much higher heat without
drying out.
It is going to add a lot more flavor to your satay.
Just pour this marinade over the top.
And just give it a good stir around.
Make sure your chicken is completely coated in the marinade, cover it in thin film, and
put it in the fridge.
This needs at least a day to marinate, so try and make it well in advance. If you can,
give it two days, and it will taste even better for it. So, in the fridge.
So for the sauce, as with loads of South East Asian cooking, it is based around a spice
paste. I have some finely chopped lemongrass and galangal.
They go in there. And then some shallots and garlic.
To that, I am going to add some chilies. These have been soaked in warm water for about two
hours. And just soak them so that they will break down more easily in the food processor.
So there they go in.
Just to loosen the paste, some vegetable oil. So a good couple of tablespoons of that. Pop
the lid on and blitz.
So there we go, that is good and smooth.
Just get rid of the blade.
And that goes straight into a dry wok. The reason we are using a dry wok is there is
already oil in the paste, so we do not need to add any more. The minute that hits the
pan, you get this incredible waft. Chili, lemon grass, galangal, it really hits the
back of your throat.
But it smells incredible.
What you are looking to do here is a thing called cracking. So keep frying out the spice
paste until all those raw ingredients are cooked.
Because at the moment there is raw chilies, raw garlic, raw eyes. And we want to cook
those out. And the way you know they are cooked is that the oil will start to separate from
the paste.
Right, next up is what everybody associates with satay, is peanuts. These are just roasted
peanuts, no salt, and they have just been pounded up in a pestle and mortar to a nice
sort of rough powder.
Chuck all of those in, give it a quick stir, and the whole thing is going to dry out quite
a bit now.
So to add some moisture, I have got some of this. This is tamarind water. So what I have
done is taken tamarind paste, which is a kind of seed pod, really quite sour, but it also
has a sort of deep caramel flavor, and just works brilliantly with this sauce.
I have just soaked it in hot water, and I am just going to spoon off the liquid so we
do not get any of these seeds in there. And this is actually going to add quite a nice
sourness to the sauce as well.
So it will go really well with the sweetness of the chilies, garlic, and shallots. So next,
a little bit of palm sugar.
This is going to add a kind of toffee, caramel flavor and balance out the sourness of the
tamarind. So a good couple of spoonfuls of that.
So just keep stirring that around. You want to make sure that that palm sugar melts, and
distributes evenly through the sauce.
And then the last thing for a bit of seasoning, rather than using salt, use kecap manis.
So a good drizzle of that.
So just leave that to cook for a good three or four minutes, just until the sauce starts
to thicken up. And that is the kind of color you are looking for, this deep caramel color,
not all that horrible, pasty, lurid, bright yellow sauce you often get in bad Chinese
takeaways. This is the real deal.
The sauce is thickened, it is looking gooey, smells incredible. So that just needs to set
aside to cool.
In the meantime I can heat the griddle pan up. So you want this griddle pan set over
a really high heat, as high as possible, because you want it smoking before we put the chicken
on. And actually this dish works brilliantly over charcoal, so it is perfect for barbeque
season.
I have got some bamboo skewers here, and they have just been soaking in water for a good
few hours, and that is going to stop them setting fire and catching light on the grill.
So take a skewer and then just thread the chicken pieces on. It is a bit of a mucky
job, but it is well worth it.
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Right, so the griddle pan is smoking, you do not need to add any oil, because all the
oil is in the marinade already. I am just going to add these and get them nice and charred.
That is what you are looking for, that nice sizzle. Griddle these for about two to three
minutes on each side, just until they are cooked through and got deep char lines on
them. Set them aside to rest.
You do not want to shake the pan, you do not want to try to move them or lift them too
early, because everything will stick to the pan and burn. Basically, when the chicken
is cooked and ready to turn, it should just lift on its own, so you should not need to
sort of scrape it off. So just pry it away and turn over, and that is what you are looking
for. These lovely deep char lines are going to give a really great smokey flavor.
So to check they are done, just give them a little prod. They should be slightly firm
with a bit of bounce to them still, so you know they are cooked through.
Right, so these guys are done. Just grab a plate.
And just keep griddling until all the chicken is cooked.
Got our sauce, and the final thing, just a couple of wedges of lime, just to go on the
side to be squeezed over later.
And there we have it. My traditional Malaysian chicken satay with peanut dipping sauce. This
stuff is the real deal.
Mmm. It is smokey, it is sweet, fiery kick from the chili, everything satay should be.
And if you enjoyed this recipe, I look forward to seeing you back in the kitchen again soon,
for another episode in my Asian Bite series.
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